


Perihelion

by rednihilist



Series: Ecliptic [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, R plus L equals J
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-05-29 01:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6354160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rednihilist/pseuds/rednihilist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is not one choice but all of them everywhere that shape the world. What a few decided millennia ago now plays out before her. A single civilization overreaches, and the entire future is rewritten. She is not a fool. A great deal is owed to circumstance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No profit is made or infringement intended, only enjoyment.

In the middle of a meal with her newest adviser, she makes what to anyone else would seem to be the mistake of saying, "In some ways I am as much a prisoner as those in irons."  
  
It is not one choice but all of them everywhere that shape the world. What a few decided millennia ago now plays out before her. A single civilization overreaches, and the entire future is rewritten. She is not a fool. A great deal is owed to circumstance.  
  
A fool would insist it is by his own will that he succeeds, his hand alone that conquers and rules. Daenerys is no fool.  
  
Tyrion snorts mid-swallow, his left hand quickly covering his nose and mouth while the right hovers nearby, full wine glass clutched as tightly as a baby's rattle. His beloved hobby, drinking. An honest man, Tyrion, making no excuses for his perceived failings.  
  
"I beg pardon, Your Majesty," he says a moment later. "It wasn't the sentiment, you understand, simply the analogy."  
  
"My opinion startles you then?" she asks, watching his expression seamlessly shift to contrite and pacifying. "Come now, I'm not angry. It's conversation I seek, not your blind obedience. Let us debate."  
  
Her wayward adviser purses his lips, his frown encompassing the entirety of his face. She's never seen someone who frowns as intensely as Tyrion Lannister.  
  
"Your Majesty," he says, "I do not wish to offend, but I feel it my duty in this instance to remind you of the sheer scope of both luxury and power you've attained, especially the latter, which I can personally attest no prisoner anywhere is afforded, especially not those locked in the Black Cells of King's Landing." Tyrion raises his wine glass, now half empty, in mock toast. "Unless you mean not circumstance, but destiny, in which case I fear I'm not exactly—qualified for this debate, rousing as it would no doubt be." He salutes her and then promptly drains his glass, a delicate belch politely hidden behind his hand.  
  
Polite in his scorn, his words are a slap to the face. Dany looks away, indeed considering and cataloging the finery she's surrounded herself with. It's a long way she's come from that girl hiding behind her brother's legs in a Braavosi alley. It's not enough, and she's beginning to accept that it may never be.  
  
"Did you ever wish for a simpler life?" she asks. Then before he can answer, Dany volunteers, "My favorites were tales of adventure on the high seas, pirates and the like, stolen treasures and secret identities. I would look at men and women at the docks and markets and imagine them abducting us aboard some great vessel—where we'd prove ourselves more than able seamen of course." She smiles.  
  
Tyrion returns the smile. "Of course," he agrees. "'We'?" he asks, carefully.  
  
She maintains control of her face with every fiber of her being as she says, "My brother and I."  
  
"Viserys."  
  
She nods, deliberately holding eye contact, unflinchingly composed. It takes effort but not as much as it used to.  
  
"My travelling companion shared with me an unusual story, before we were so rudely separated by Ser Jorah." Tyrion settles back in his chair, hands crossing over his middle in the picture of redolent noble. He learned his lessons well, mannerisms and speech as polished and wicked as dragon glass.  
  
"Varys," she says, drawing out the syllables.  
  
Tyrion nods. "Just so. In the story, a prince met his end on the Dothraki sea, the same sea a princess became a queen."  
  
"And in the story, how did the prince meet his end?" Dany asks, raising her own wine glass to her lips.  
  
Tyrion shrugs. "None can say for sure. One way has it he was trampled beneath the khal's horse. Another says he was offered as sacrifice to the Great Stallion."  
  
"A poor offering then," she says, before she can reconsider, "as no good came of it."  
  
Eyebrows shooting up, Tyrion simply says, "Indeed."  
  
She looks at him as he looks at her, before finally setting down her glass and pointedly asking, "What is your point, Tyrion?"  
  
He breaks first, dropping his head and staring at his hands as he clearly thinks through his response. Tact? Or an internal debate as to how much vulnerability he is willing to display?  
  
"Lannister is a name synonymous with murder," he says, startling her somewhat with the emotion in his voice—the hurt, for lack of a better word. Vulnerability.  
  
She's never had the impression he's overly fond of anything to do with his family, especially their reputation. A thought occurs to her then though, of just what argument he's trying to make.  
  
"And mine is a beacon of love and understanding?" Dany asks.  
  
"Just so," Tyrion says again, before adding, "but what if it were our very attempts to escape our families' legacies that sealed our fates?" Something must show in her expression because he hastily plows forward. "What must it be like to genuinely wish to emulate one's father? Imagine how much easier, simpler life would be if the path had already been cleared before you. But we're too stubborn to follow, knowing we're right, that our way is best, that everyone else will bend before we break."  
  
"A cycle, you mean," she says.  
  
He nods, his hands gesturing larger with every impassioned word. "Whether or not we try to break free, we are our father's children, just as they were theirs, and so on. The story of my house is like any other, full of strong men and cunning men and weak men, and all of them dead and all but useless. Unless," he says, slowly looking at her once more, "we see our actions for what they are. Perhaps you are right, Your Majesty. Perhaps everyone is a prisoner to their family, a slave to their ancestors."  
  
"If nothing else, in face at least," Dany says, gesturing at her eyes and hair with a small smile. It's not a cheerful notion and never has been, but she is clearly a Targaryen, and Tyrion with his gold hair and biting wit is a Lannister through and through if even a quarter of the stories are true.  
  
"You asked about dreams of an easier life– " he begins.  
  
She interrupts, saying, "Simpler, my lord Tyrion, not easier. There isn't a soul in this world whose life is easy."  
  
"You've never met my cousin clearly," he says. "An easier life than his I can't fathom."  
  
She remains silent, raising her eyebrows in goading. Let Tyrion talk and he'll forge you castles and mountains and everything except the very sword you asked him for. He enjoys talking almost as much as drinking.  
  
"A knight," he says.  
  
Of course.  
  
"Obvious setbacks aside, my brother claimed that profession for himself. Perhaps a maester then. Or a builder. I also considered piracy myself," he says with a nod, "but quickly determined that between the rocking of the boat and my stature a sillier pirate I'd never heard tell of. So, a maester or builder. Well, obviously no son of Tywin Lannister would ever be allowed to build anything but wealth, so I asked my father to send me to Oldtown. I framed all the many ways it would be beneficial to him and the family, painted a beautiful picture of family loyalty and appropriate ambitions. Duty, you understand."  
  
"He refused," Dany says.  
  
"Without hesitation. My well-being, you see, was never a concern. It was quite the opposite, in fact. I have no doubt that without my brother's interference, I would have perished in a tragic accident before my first nameday."  
  
"The Kingslayer," she says, leaving the second confession undisturbed where it lies, an offering put before her.  
  
"The very same," Tyrion agrees, reaching for the wine. He's polite, gestures towards her before refilling his glass at her refusal. "Our two paths intersected before either of us was even born. I find it no coincidence I'm sitting here now: the brother of the man who killed your father; the son of the man who snubbed your father, quite publicly I might add; the brother of the woman your eldest brother and your father themselves snubbed; the goodbrother of the man who slew your eldest brother and then married that scorned woman, gods help him, the bloated idiot. So you see, Your Majesty, I too am more often than not defined by my relations and those external forces surrounding me and not my own actions—as are we all, Targaryen, Lannister, Stark, Martell, Rivers, Snow, highborn and lowborn, freed and enslaved. A toss of the dice. Here a dwarf," he says with vitriol, "here a queen, here a bastard, here a lovesick fool."  
  
Tyrion does not look up from his glass, and she wonders if he does so for the same reasons as she, if he's drunk or just exhausted, or if perhaps he trusts her despite the odds, despite how strange and yet balanced they are. Here a queen, indeed.  
  
"Don't jump into that pit when so many would seek to push you," she says quietly, more so than she intends. It comes out louder than a whisper but not the confident words or advice of a noble queen, the distance between them absent for the moment, as though Tyrion's honesty cast some spell they cannot help but fulfill.  
  
He's a charmer and a good man and a murderer, a combination none of the stories from her childhood would have countenanced.  
  
At her words he looks up, and there he is; Tyrion lives in his head, his eyes.  
  
"I beg your pardon, Your Majesty," he says eventually. "After a certain period of time, the drink makes me melancholy and self-pitying."  
  
She waves it away, to which he raises his eyebrows.  
  
"What of forgiveness then?" she asks. "You have not wronged me, Tyrion, but your dear brother has and others, the Starks, the Baratheons, the Arryns in their Eyrie. Do I bend in reconciliation? Is that how one circumvents the inevitable repetition of destiny?"  
  
Furrowing his brow, he makes no move to drink further, simply cradling the glass as he says, "I admit fair bias when it comes to my own flesh and blood, Your Majesty, and perhaps were the other Houses you named still viable threats I would advise caution, but of the three only one is even still alive, and I daresay any claim, army, or loyalty Stannis Baratheon has acquired is precarious at best, liable to disperse when tested against a foe not of his own House."  
  
The other brother, yes, whom Stannis purportedly killed with magic. Ser Jorah, Ser Barristan, they told her this news laughingly, as though magic were not real, as if what horrors one brother conjured against the other for a throne neither had a right to were somehow more abstract and absurd than the three creatures Daenerys called children. Any man willing to kill his own blood was not to be underestimated, as evidenced by the man before her.  
  
"There is a son, an Arryn," she says, "and there are Starks still roaming about, the girl was married not long ago. The North is not the South, where House Martell will be duty-bound to come to my banner, or the Reach, where power still speaks louder than any loyalty. Up there in the North where it is always winter, what difference is there between the rightful ruler and the pretender? That girl's father was like a brother to the Usurper, his Hand, and our lives were but dirt beneath his boot, an annoyance to be quashed. He ordered me killed, the life of my son. . . "  
  
She stops and looks away, and when Tyrion just breathes deeply, she feels the sorrow of Rhaego and Drogo's passing as deep as ever but something else besides.  
  
Vulnerability.  
  
"I was not there when the order was given, Your Majesty," Tyrion says, his voice steady and deep, "as I was myself there in the North, the far North of the Wall, where, as you say, it is always winter, where the Men of the Watch indeed make no distinction between the Houses or rulers of the Seven Kingdoms. Yet, it is my understanding that Stark counseled Robert in compassion, and I believe that to be true, not only because the man who told me is reliable, but also that is– rather, was, their way, the Starks. They are many things, to be sure, fools and romantics, naïve even, but I believe them to be above all fair. There is little malice there, in those who remain."  
  
"You make them seem noble certainly."  
  
"They are," he says. Then, a moment later, "Those I knew were good people, stretched beyond themselves, but that's what happens in the South, is it not? Best they had stayed up North in that winter, where they can be honest and fair and loyal and be murdered by a friend, wed to an evil shit, or elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch." The glass long cradled rose in a toast.  
  
"Lord Commander?" she asks.  
  
Tyrion smiles bitterly.


	2. Chapter 2

"Well, we can't send Theon," Yara loudly proclaims.

Tyrion shoots Dany a look, eyebrows raised and mouth quirked to the side. She isn't sure what exactly it's meant to convey, but she has an idea. The others at the table are either sending Dany similar looks or staring at Yara with amazement.

Ah.

Dany lifts her hand, palm up, telling Yara and the others that there's no need for this trepidation. If they are going to speak it, she wants to hear it, not have it related to her only after the fact. Varys might have survived the poisonous well of the Usurper's court by hoarding close all those unspoken truths, but Dany will not make the same mistakes twice.

Not after Jorah. Not after Drogo and Rhaego. She will hear the truth, hard or kind. She is not her father.

"He's not going back there," Yara states, her volume decreased but certainly not her fervor. This is a sticking point for her.

Dany turns from Yara to Theon, who doesn't lift his head.

Tyrion scoffs from his seat next to Dany, and she has to resist sighing. Here comes more needling from him towards the Greyjoys.

"I should think," Tyrion says, "he'd want to make amends. Perhaps this is but the first step towards reconciliation?"

Dany finally looks at him, and he isn't smiling or chortling, but he's still visibly amused. He briefly meets her eyes, and she shakes her head at him.

"No," Yara says. She turns to Dany. "That is a disaster for everyone just waiting to happen." She waits and when no one, including Dany, interrupts her, adds, "It gains you nothing."

"You think the Starks will harm him?" Tyrion asks, and something about his tone is pushing, as though he's goading Yara, taunting her with something neither she nor Theon ever speak of.

Dany is not a fool.

This is cruel, and she won't stand for it.

"She's right," Dany says, taking Tyrion's resulting look of betrayal with a large grain of salt. He's acting the part at the moment. Never does he show his genuine emotions so clearly as he is now, which means he's only pretending to be ignorant of the effect his words have, and Dany certainly won't fall for it. "Theon is undoubtedly the one most qualified to parley with the Starks and this King of the North, but I am not unaware of the history between them." She waits until Theon looks up and then tells him, "Nor am I so unfeeling as to disregard what such an order would signify. You are my ally, Theon Greyjoy, and I shall not carelessly toss those who stand with me to the wolves."

He swallows and then nods, looking down at the table once more.

Beside her, Tyrion isn't fuming, and across from her is Yara who for once isn't gloating. Such a balance here. Another trap avoided?

"Instead," Dany says, moving her right hand to indicate Tyrion, "my Lord Hand will journey North and deliver my terms." Said Hand stiffens in his chair. "He is also familiar with the Starks, with the castle at Winterfell, and I daresay more accomplished at winning over adversaries without use of swords or dragons than anyone else I've ever known." She waits, and he eventually lifts his head to meet her eyes. Dany says to him, "And I trust you implicitly, Lord Tyrion, to speak for me and keep your head."

Not a turn of phrase she uses lightly with regard to Starks and Lannisters.

He sighs. "And perhaps it's my chance to make amends as well, Your Majesty?"

Dany smiles. "I said no such thing."

He narrows his eyes but nods his acquiescence.

"And these terms, Your Majesty. . . " Varys begins quietly. He is seated to Tyrion's right, and Dany turns to him. When he doesn't continue, Dany raises her eyebrows pointedly.

"Speak, Varys. I would know what troubles you."

He folds his hands on the table, a calculated gesture. Varys looks around the table then, only speaking when he returns to Dany. "I waited, Your Majesty, in the hopes that another would introduce the—dilemma. Alas, none has. It then falls to me to bring to your attention the matter of secession." With a pointed nod towards the Greyjoys to his right, Varys says, "The Iron Islands are no longer part of what used to be the Seven Kingdoms, and as I've not been privy to any discussion on the matter, I feel it necessary to inquire as to what guarantees or promises Your Majesty will authorize Lord Tyrion to make—in this regard."

Between them, Tyrion is nodding.

"Should they ask for their independence as well," Dany says.

Varys nods. "Yes, My Queen." He pauses before tactfully adding, "They have good reason, I should think."

She nods in acknowledgement.

And here is another tipping point. If her counsel does not tear itself apart, will her kingdom? The South and Crownlands and Riverlands are hers, the Rock through Tyrion is as well, but not the Vale, and not the North, the latter the largest kingdom by far, though not the most populous, at least not with, from what terrifying information has managed to make its way to her, the living.

"With their present concerns, I doubt independence is forefront in their minds. Nevertheless, should they ask, I trust Lord Tyrion will direct them to me. I will decide when and if I hear such a request. Let me say here and now that if needs must," Dany says, looking around at all those seated here, "I would rather serve as Queen of the Five Kingdoms and maintain close, friendly ties with three others," and here she nods to Yara, "than force into further submission a group of peoples with a history of tyrannical rule."

Not a word is spoken, not a head nods, and though she had been doubtful of such a viewpoint until this very moment, Dany finds herself confident that it is right. She will not repeat the mistakes of the past, whether it be her own or those of others. Fear and terror and hate are not what she wishes for her people. If she learned nothing else from Slaver's Bay, from being sold by Viserys, from hearing the tales of Tyrion's family in King's Landing, it is that those subject to power far outnumber those who wield it. If she had no heart, that would be enough of a warning: that though she might take seven kingdoms by force, she would not forever be able to hold them.

But she is not heartless, and she will not abide slavery. Pride and arrogance and cruelty for cruelty's sake, these are what she personally must always remain vigilant against.

Later, she sends for Tyrion, offering him a drink as soon as he walks into her solar. He smiles and takes it, and they toast. What Tyrion drinks to, she has no idea. Dany drinks to health and wisdom and a land that is alive and peaceful, a land she has helped heal.

"Are you nervous?" she asks, once they're seated. The fire reflects in his eyes, making them seem almost gold, something that amuses her.

He takes another sip of wine as he stares ahead at the flames, considering his words. He is taking this seriously. Good.

"Yes," he finally answers. Never looking her way, he says, "It will be strange to see them again, in this role, after—everything."

"You will be safe, won't you?" Dany asks, needing the assurance, the confirmation that this will not end in bloodshed, that her Hand and friend is not somehow nobly riding to his death.

Tyrion meets her eyes. "They won't kill me, if that's what troubles you," he says. "Some harsh words, perhaps, a few jokes at my expense, at my family's, but they are far too noble for anything else." He looks away. "I wonder if they'll even tolerate that much. Or, mayhaps I simply hope they won't."

"You admire them," she says, following this with a long drink so that when he turns—she conveys some sense of detachment.

Better than the alternative, that she wants to know more, that she wants to go herself, that she greatly desires to meet these Northern people. Viserys called them wild and barbarous, much like the Dothraki. But Jorah is from the North. Tragedy and war, most of their kin butchered, Dany feels something like kinship with the Starks. The enemy of her enemies, always spoken of with respect, this King in the North and his sister—she sees something of herself in them.

"Greatly," Tyrion says. "Jon Snow was a good lad when I left the Wall, smart and reasonable. And Sansa. . . "

Dany switches her wineglass to her left hand and reaches out to touch Tyrion's arm with her right.

"Be careful, Tyrion," she tells him, "but know that I have the utmost faith in you. If the Starks are even half as decent as folk say, you'll be able to win them over again." She lifts her glass. "Such is the golden tongue of the Hand of the Queen."

Tyrion doesn't blush, but the smile that overtakes his face is as authentic a one as she's ever seen. She chooses to believe it's real, just as she chooses to believe that she does right.


	3. Chapter 3

Jon’s family are a strange lot, but then her experience in such matters is somewhat limited and likely skewed.

They’re none of them Viserys. Or Cersei.

These people at least seem to genuinely care for one another. Well, most of them. Dany’s not certain how to approach or address Jon’s brother. He reminds her uncomfortably of the religious and magic zealots, the red priests and priestesses and the warlocks in Qarth. Brandon Stark is unsettling, and he stares at her, and at Jon when Jon isn’t looking, in an almost mocking way, his words cryptic and disturbing.

For all that Jon is happy to see him, embracing the young man and smiling and crying tears of joy, Brandon’s gloomy manner soon visibly weighs him down. Just for that, Daenerys dislikes him, as Jon certainly doesn’t need any help being glum.

His sisters, on the other hand, are refreshing. In the Lady of Winterfell, she sees echoes of herself, and the younger sister, Arya, makes Dany smile, sometimes with envy at her sheer boldness. She thinks the two of them and the Lady Brienne perhaps in part explain some of Jon’s attitude towards Dany, the tenacity and deep well of affection only thinly veiled by deference. It’s a Northern trait, she’s guessing, to appear cold and dull so as to ward off predators. That’s certainly Jorah’s way, or it was.

That was Jon’s way at first, before he thawed, before he was hers just as much as she is his.

“The castle proper is built over hot springs,” Tyrion had told her the night before they arrived. “Arguably warmer now within its walls than the Red Keep.”

“And safer,” she said, thinking again of these Starks, of Jon, so very like his Winterfell, molten beneath his austere exterior, those liquid eyes saying more than his mouth ever can or will.

The castle itself isn’t as she’d imagined it, not at all like Pike or Dragonstone or King’s Landing or even The Wall, the only places she’s really seen of Westeros. All those months spent fighting and travelling, spent together, snatching what moments they could, she hoarding the scant bits of information Jon would let slip when exhausted, and when Daenerys finally sees where Jon grew up—she’s still somehow surprised at how welcome a sight it is. Not dull or depressing or cold but a haven, somewhere warm and out of harm’s way, a heart, a home.

She’s given a suite of rooms, a lush bedroom for herself and one for Missandei, a sitting room, all with fine though perhaps outdated furnishings, stocked with drink and prepared with clean linen and strong fires. The stone walls and floors of her chambers are indeed warm to the touch, and she is pleased, even as she is vaguely insulted to be herded and corralled into separate accommodations from Jon.

“I think they are unaware,” Missandei says, quietly, once the Stark maid has withdrawn.

Dany smirks. “Or they disapprove.”

Dinner is an odd affair, tense in unexpected ways. Conversation thrives between Jon and Arya but Tyrion is strangely reticent, as is Jon’s friend, Sam. The food is simple but well-prepared and plentiful. In addition to some mediocre wine, she’s offered and accepts a tankard of ale, sharing a smile with Jon as she sips at it. The moment is only slightly ruined by Brandon Stark’s cold eyes and Sam loudly fumbling his fork.

“I hope you have a restful evening, Your Majesty,” bids the Lady of Winterfell, as they exit the hall.

“I’m certain I will,” Dany says, “and I thank you for your hospitality.” Then, feeling bold herself and safe among Jon’s friends and family and comrades, she steps closer to Sansa Stark and embraces her, kissing her on the cheek.

Later, while she is debating whether or not to follow Missandei’s directions to Jon’s room, someone knocks at her door. Opening it is déjà vu, except Jon now is wearing only pants and a loose shirt, his bare feet pale and vulnerable on the stone floor and his ridiculous hair unbound. She smiles at him and stands back, and he is hardly even inside before he’s grabbing her by the waist and spinning her around, using her body to shut the door and his own to hold her still.

“I missed you,” he whispers into her hair.

“It was five days,” she says, trying for light but missing entirely. Might have something to do with her hands clawing at Jon’s shoulders, her hips bumping up towards his. He’s hard already, and Dany laughs when he groans. He then slides his hands around to her ass and picks her up.

“Merciless,” he mutters, walking steadily, if slowly, until they hit the edge of the bed. She’s on her back for only a second before he’s on top of her, his right leg spreading both of hers wide, his left hand slipping within the folds of her robe.

“Only,” she breathes, “because you’re impatient.”

Jon pulls his head away from her breasts long enough to give her an incredulous look. “Thought I did pretty well, all told.”

“Oh, yes, you’ve waited more than four hours before jumping me: such restraint is truly impressive, King Snow!”

Jon’s head drops back down into her cleavage, but he’s shaking with laughter.

Dany pulls at his shirt. “Take this off.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he says, making no move to actually follow through.

She sighs and then sighs again as his fingers press and curve steadily inside her.

“Impudent,” she breathes out.

No more talking from Jon. He all but slithers down her body, wrapping one hand around her thigh and pushing it up to her chest, his mouth, that beautiful, honest, sincere mouth latching on and slowly overwhelming her.

Dany slides her hands into his hair, cradles his skull, cradles him, as she’s swept away, returning only to pull him even closer.

“Jon,” she calls to him, once he’s in as far as he can go, trying to catch those eyes of his. His body’s here, but often his head’s somewhere else. Dany runs her hand over the wounds on his torso, the places that won’t even close, won’t ever scar, that he can’t seem to heal or forget. She says, “Beloved.”

Such beautiful eyes, such a beautiful man, and she lifts her legs higher, wrapping them around his waist, dragging him closer with her body, willing him not to pull back.

“You’re mine, Jon Snow,” she whispers, snapping her hips up and up, wishing she could melt into him and be done with it—wishing she could make him whole and wholly hers.

Jon kisses her, grabs her wrists and pins them above her head to the bed. He slams into her again and again, skin and bone filling her and remaking her until she is only this moment in time, until she’s his as much as he is hers, until she’s overflowing with a gasp and he’s moaning and biting her shoulder, curving his entire being around hers.

“Dany,” he whispers, slowly falling back down to earth beside her, and she only just barely resists wincing, trying desperately not to think of Viserys calling her that while lying here with Jon.


End file.
